School of Advanced Sciences, VIT University, Vellore-632 014, Tamilnadu, India E-mail : ncsarada@vit.ac.in Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Centre for Biomedical Research, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India From past few decades, medicinal plants have been reported as conventional anti-cancer agents. The aim of the present work was to investigate the cytotoxic activity of Drypetes sepiaria. In the present study, the methanolic extracts of leaves were screened for its cytotoxic activity against human cervical carcinoma cell (HeLa) by using MTT assay. A further, to provide evidence for involvement of apoptosis, the caspase-3 activated cells were quantified flow cytometrically by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). The extract was more toxic to HeLa cell line with IC50 value of 10 µg/ mL respectively. Further, treatment of 10 µg/mL methanolic extract at 12 h was shown to increase caspase-3 cells from 0.24% to 60%, indicating that the observed cytotoxicity was mediated via apoptosis. The bio active components which may responsible for the cytotoxicity of methanolic extracts were further separated and analyzed by GC-MS.